Wednesday 4 March 2015

Wednesday 4th March 2015 - What Great Progress!

Well the meteorological springtime has arrived, and although a cold wind was blowing there was no sign of rain and it did feel as though spring was in the air. Judging by the vast amount of hard work going on, that cant be in doubt,
tremendous progress was made.

I have to start on what was undoubtedly the toughest job of the day - the infill of Platform 2C. We had Steve and the JCB today and the first job was to shift some brick rubble up behind 2C. This is partly to add to the drainage, and partly to eke out the amount  of Toddington ballast we had left.
Jo was on the 3 tonne dumper and able to take some snap shots on the way.





Arrival at the other end required the infill gang to place the bricks in a single layer along the whole length of 2C. Steve B was on our 1 tonne dumper and what it lacked in capacity was made up for by the number of trips made - man and machine in harmony!






As the day progressed, gradually the ballast arrived at the end of the wall - I think thy're looking pretty pleased with themselves. Job Done?











Not really we had 60 tonnes of topsoil delivered by  Pete Bott Recycling. What a great organisation they are! Hearing of our
problems with the slip, they offered us the topsoil free of charge. How good is that! All this was facilitated by Graham Smith of Routmaster bus fame, who is a great friend to Broadway.









The task in hand then was to place and grade up the bank behind the slip, that would then allow grass seed to be planted and return the bank to its natural form. Here the team still manage to swing a shovel! Note a different dumper arrive after lunch - the other one gave up the ghost! Well done to Elliotts for sorting the problem out promptly.

By the close of play Platform 2C begins to look near completion.

You will have noticed in the above pictures the bricklaying team continuing with the job, made doubly difficult by the low working height of the inner wall and of course by having to lay the the cut bricks on the ramp.










Peter H, through sheer dogged determination, worked on the inner wall, mainly on his knees. Roger B  has returned from a well earned holiday and resumed his duty of master corbeller.








Bob Jones drew the short straw for laying the angle cut bricks on the ramp.



And now to the Signal Box!

Where do we start? Well Paul Richards  and Co brought the window cills along for fitting + the windows! These hard wood, double glazed windows are first class. If you are one of the sponsors for these windows - have no fear - they are excellent, absolutely excellent Thank you!












And just to get an impression  as to what they look like - here is a pair temporarily fitted

Finally to put the cherry on the proverbial Signal Box cake the pitching of the roof was started. A great team were on the box today -it looked quite crowded!  I am pretty sure everyone was pleased with the outcome. I know I was. 





Over at Toddington, two Broadway Stalwarts were  helping with the finishing off of the barrow crossing extension.Vic and Mike S manage to dig 10 fence post holes in the morning. A small party is needed on Saturday to finish the job off - the running season starts for 2015! Yippee!






The GWSR Volunteers Recruitment Fair is coming up. If you have ever hesitated as to whether you would enjoy yourself and find volunteering rewarding, come along and talk to us.

Have you heard the one about............







.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Excellent!! It makes my day waiting for these blogs!! very good about the signal box!! Well done lads!! Any idea if the extension blog will be updated soon? Thanks
Aaron

Anonymous said...

Permanent Way photos:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/gwr_permanent_way_photo_log/

I presume the extension will resume now the trains are running from this weekend...?

Jo said...

The extension blog is waiting for extension news !

Shouldn't be long now, but not before the running season has started, and a bit of organising.

Geoff said...

I detoured my run yesterday to have a look at the station. Despite having followed this blog and seen all the photos, I have to say "in the flesh" the work you guys are doing looks even more fantastic, the signal box especially so.

Keep up the good work!